themasterphil wrote:I am serious now, are we going to make a playoff this season????.....for me its hard to say, because as Rambis sad, Nash is the worst defensive player on this team and he wasnt there, what will happen then. They cant play defense, and lets be honest, teams without defense always sucks and cant win anything. I am also tired of this Howard talks about time, process and all of that garbage, I just dont buy it anymore. You need to go to the gym and practice FT. I dont play basketball too much anymore but I can shoot FT at 80% in the middle of the night....so you can work on that and be better, but you need to practice a lot.

I don't know what to say. Losing to Queens, Pacers, Magic...please, Playoffs seems a miracle. This team is so bad. Zero defense!

1) apparently, these mofos think the name on the back of their jersey is worth 15 points at the start of the game2) saying "nash will make it all work" is a crutch. if it takes nash's return to beat teams like sac town, orland, etc, then let's just mail it in for the year3) d'antoni says the team played with no heart. so he doesn't play hill, who is our best hustle player. a guy like hill, without him having to say anything can bring up the level of intensity pretty quickly with his effort4) does no one realize that what has helped teams win championships the last 20 years is defense? clearly this team doesn't, nor does the coaching staff. great teams get stops when they need to. this team hasn't done that all year.5)there's less whining in this thread compared to a kobe bryant drive to the bucket

as terrible as pau has been on D this season, dan tony NEEDS to put him in for dwight at the end of games to prevent the hack-a-dwight. it's either leave dwight in for D, make some stops, and not score anything each time he's fouled, giving the ball right back OR put pau in and keep the other team from fouling and keep the pace and rhythm going. he just needs to focus on his D more than anything so they can make the stops they need at the end of the game to preserve the lead

oh and pau actually can make most of his FT's. c'mon dan tony, it cant be that hard to realize this

why this team so inconsistent? Dont think we can blame the coach anymore, this team just not that good afterall, or pieces aren't fitting. Besides Dwight, NOBODY plays any type of D, Peace is avg at best it was frustrating watching this guy get lost on screens, Kobe D at this point actually over the last several years has all been past rep, dude plays no D whatsoever.

khmrP wrote:why this team so inconsistent? Dont think we can blame the coach anymore, this team just not that good afterall, or pieces aren't fitting. Besides Dwight, NOBODY plays any type of D, Peace is avg at best it was frustrating watching this guy get lost on screens, Kobe D at this point actually over the last several years has all been past rep, dude plays no D whatsoever.

I think you can put some of that on the staff. D' Antoni's team have always been suspect on defense. It's not the emphasis of what they are doing and the coaching philosophy and offensive system run completely counter to what you would want if you were going to emphasize lock down D. Shooting early in the shot clock and trying to run and gun leads to transition basketball for the other team which is a fatal flaw for an older team like us. We shouldn't be expending all of our energy on the other side of the ball. But hey, we're having fun so it's all good. It looks wonderful when our guys are hitting everything like they were the other night against Denver, but in close games it can lead to disaster quickly.

This is why I was in favor of getting a coach who had more of a middle ground philosophy in Jerry Sloan. He has a system that emphasized pick and roll and pick and pop in the half court, and some off ball screening for Kobe, but wasn't a run and gun philosophy. And on the defensive end no one holds guys more accountable than Jerry freaking Sloan. No way Kobe or anyone else would be getting away with this kind of slacker defense we are seeing every other game. No chance.

khmrP wrote:why this team so inconsistent? Dont think we can blame the coach anymore, this team just not that good afterall, or pieces aren't fitting. Besides Dwight, NOBODY plays any type of D, Peace is avg at best it was frustrating watching this guy get lost on screens, Kobe D at this point actually over the last several years has all been past rep, dude plays no D whatsoever.

I think you can put some of that on the staff. D' Antoni's team have always been suspect on defense. It's not the emphasis of what they are doing and the coaching philosophy and offensive system run completely counter to what you would want if you were going to emphasize lock down D. Shooting early in the shot clock and trying to run and gun leads to transition basketball for the other team which is a fatal flaw for an older team like us. We shouldn't be expending all of our energy on the other side of the ball. But hey, we're having fun so it's all good. It looks wonderful when our guys are hitting everything like they were the other night against Denver, but in close games it can lead to disaster quickly.

This is why I was in favor of getting a coach who had more of a middle ground philosophy in Jerry Sloan. He has a system that emphasized pick and roll and pick and pop in the half court, and some off ball screening for Kobe, but wasn't a run and gun philosophy. And on the defensive end no one holds guys more accountable than Jerry freaking Sloan. No way Kobe or anyone else would be getting away with this kind of slacker defense we are seeing every other game. No chance.

more rep stuff again, what proof do you have that says Sloan was some defensive guru? Utah D during his tenure was nothing special either, especially after Stockton/Malone era when he had the trio of Okur/Boozer/Deron.

Lakerjones : our perimeter players are too slow to stay with their opponents , rotate , chase through screens ( + add Pau lack of mobility as a PF and you just can't D at a high level) ... it was true during the last season with Phil , it was true with Brown and it's true with MDA .. it's a personel pb 1st

Khmrp.. you're right these Booz/Deron were bad on D ... the only D they were playing was : fouling , fouling , fouling ...

I'd rather be a bad defensive team to start the year than offensive team. You need to score the rock to win in this league only once in a while you see a lockdown defensive team like Detroit Pistons. Our defense is fixable, right now they're not taking that end seriously, they're not communicating (happens because guys dont know what spot to be at). If we're struggling on offense I'd be extremely concerned

When the Heat started out 9-8 they had the same issues we are having right now. Communication (or lack thereof) on defense and therefore not helping the helper.

King of Clutch wrote:Guys, notice how we're all coming up with numerous problems for this team. They're ALL CORRECT to a degree. kobe's play style right now (without nash), kobe's D after screens, team defense, no heart, rotations, paus pnr d and overall play, howards free throws, No one having the authority to tell kobe what to do. We just have too many problems!!! I'm seriously beginning to doubt this teams potential. There are sooo many things fundamentally wrong with this team. If nash can somehow bring this team to championship level play, then he will truly deserves mvp. But I just don't see it happening. Our problems lie waay past steve nash's absence...

Ding, ding, ding! This

A championship team has never looked this bad AND undergone this much change in a season. Well, maybe it's happened, I just can't recall one.

Not so much changes, but the 2011 Championship Mavericks lost 9 of 11 early that year. Had a couple of nice, long win streaks. Then lost 5 of 8 down the stretch, capped by a 4 game losing streak just a week before playoffs.

Same Frankenstein deal. Just hope the hot team shows up for the playoffs.

khmrP wrote:why this team so inconsistent? Dont think we can blame the coach anymore, this team just not that good afterall, or pieces aren't fitting. Besides Dwight, NOBODY plays any type of D, Peace is avg at best it was frustrating watching this guy get lost on screens, Kobe D at this point actually over the last several years has all been past rep, dude plays no D whatsoever.

I think you can put some of that on the staff. D' Antoni's team have always been suspect on defense. It's not the emphasis of what they are doing and the coaching philosophy and offensive system run completely counter to what you would want if you were going to emphasize lock down D. Shooting early in the shot clock and trying to run and gun leads to transition basketball for the other team which is a fatal flaw for an older team like us. We shouldn't be expending all of our energy on the other side of the ball. But hey, we're having fun so it's all good. It looks wonderful when our guys are hitting everything like they were the other night against Denver, but in close games it can lead to disaster quickly.

This is why I was in favor of getting a coach who had more of a middle ground philosophy in Jerry Sloan. He has a system that emphasized pick and roll and pick and pop in the half court, and some off ball screening for Kobe, but wasn't a run and gun philosophy. And on the defensive end no one holds guys more accountable than Jerry freaking Sloan. No way Kobe or anyone else would be getting away with this kind of slacker defense we are seeing every other game. No chance.

more rep stuff again, what proof do you have that says Sloan was some defensive guru? Utah D during his tenure was nothing special either, especially after Stockton/Malone era when he had the trio of Okur/Boozer/Deron.

Well, your answer is right there in your post. They had Boozer, Okur and Deron. None of those guys are defensive guys at all. And yet Sloan had that not very good team in the playoffs every single year. Always. He had them playing HARD. Guys always played hard for Sloan until he and D. Will just completely butted heads.

I'm not saying Sloan was a guru defensively, now Tom Thibodeau is a genius on that end. My point is that with Sloan there has always been accountability on that end of the floor.

If you want to get into a debate on the coaching strengths of D' Antoni versus Jerry Sloan I think you're off your rocker guys. One guy is in the Hall of Fame for a reason. The other guy is a pioneer in offensive basketball but his winning percentage is not great and he's been fired from his last couple gigs with good reason.

^^^He wasn't fired from Pho or NY, and Sloan accountability stuff is just made up stuff, Deron/Booz is no worse then Nash/Pau, woulnd't have made a difference. Sloan doen't have the mentality for todays players, just like Larry Brown, their antics gets old with players quick.

see thats what I was talking about. At no point in time until the very end until last 5-6 mins did I ever feel the game was gonna be taken from us. How did the game go from being tied at 88 all with like 4.50 left in the game to them racking up 113 points? Just defense went to sleep, bad job closing that game out. We had a 7 point lead in that 4th Q

see thats what I was talking about. At no point in time until the very end until last 5-6 mins did I ever feel the game was gonna be taken from us. How did the game go from being tied at 88 all with like 4.50 left in the game to them racking up 113 points? Just defense went to sleep, bad job closing that game out. We had a 7 point lead in that 4th Q

I honestly think Dwight's FTs contributed to them giving up 31 points over the final 6 minutes though. Every time he came up empty it was such a deflation to the team and especially Howard himself that they stopped trying on defense. That's why we should have just taken him out.

^ but we had a veteran group of players out there, Duhon, Kobe, MWP, Jamison, Dwight....I mean these are vets, just an inexcusable effort on defense in that 4th Q. 40 points allowed. Like Hollinger said they scored on like 12 straight trips.

kenzo wrote:F*** this. Im taking a break from Lakers b-ball for the rest of the year. Im not staying up till 6-7 am to watch this pathetic "thing". Come back Steve... bye Pau.

I am feeling the same exact way. The fans seem to care more than the players do. They just don't play hard, and rely on their talents. You saw that dallas game. They played hard on BOTH ends of the floor, and Dallas didn't stand a chance. They just don't do it all the time. And if thats going to be the case, i'm not going to invest all of my emotion on a team that doesn't even care enough to succeed.

lol I say this now, but I can guarantee i'll be watching the next game. lol